I am very happy to announce the publication of
an important work out just in time for Rosh Hashonah, a critical edition of all
of R' El‘azarHaKalir's Piyyutim for Rosh Hashonah, by Shulamit
Elizur and Michael Rand.

The importance of studying the Piutim before Yom
Tov has been noted by many for example:

R' Moshe Hakohen, nephew of the Rosh, writes in
his work, Sefer Hamaskil:

Different aspects related to the Kalir have been
dealt with here on the Seforim Blog; see Dan Rabinowitz's article here which includes a
bibliography about him. In addition to this, see Marc Shapiro's article here and my article here, note 73.

The Kalir as described by Rabbi Joseph B.
Soloveitchik

I would just like to quote one special passage
of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik about the greatness of the Kalir. This passage
is from the Koren Mesorat Harav Kinot (pp. 386-388) which is based on
Rabb Jacob Schacter's transcripts of the Rav's Tisha B'Av sessions:

At this point, it would
be useful to make some general observations about Rabbi Elazar Hakalir and the
style of his piyutim, his religious poetry. The piyutim of Rabbi
Elazar HaKalir, including his kinot, serve two purposes. The first is limmud,
learning. Every sentence of the piyut quotes m'aamarei Hazal,
teachings of the sages. The second purpose is tokhaha, rubuking the
people for their misdeeds and instructing them in the proper way to act. These piyutim
deal with reproach, repentance, petition and acknowledgment of God’s justice.
The shali'ah Tzibbur was not merely a hazan, a cantor, but was
one of the great scholars of the generation who was the principal mokhiah,
moral critic of the people…

Rabbi Elazar HaKalir was
a master of the Hebrew language and very creative in his use of Hebrew. If not
for him, modern Hebrew could not have come into existence. Before HaKalir, the
Hebrew language was very rigid. For example, the noun and verbs were fixed in
their form. It was difficult to transform a verb into a
noun or a noun into a verb, a simple matter in other languages…

But HaKalir made a
critical contribution to the development of the Hebrew language by endowing the
language with flexibility, thereby paving the way for the development of modern
Hebrew. There were other early paytanim, composers of piyut, such
as Yose ben Yose, but they were not as radical in their literary style as
HaKalir. HaKalir was the father of the paytanim,
and he dared to do more than any other paytan.

As noted above, Rabbi
Elazar haKalir’s piyutim served two purposes: limmud, study and tokhaha,
rebuke. As for the element of study, one of the dimensions of HaKalir’s piyutim
is that they are compilations of the statements of the sages. Most of us, who
are expert in neither Hebrew nor aggadot Hazal, find HaKalir’s corpus of
piyutim boring. But it is not boring at all; it is like a gold mine. His
piyutim for Yom Tov explain the essence of the Yom Tov. The
midrashim concerning Sukkot are replete with information about the sukka,
etrog and lulav, and all the explanations in the Midrash, all the ta’amei
sukka, the reasons for the sukka, all of the ma’amarei Hazal, are
brought together in the HaKalir’s piyutim for the first day of Sukkot.
Similarly, his piyutim for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur include all the
homiletical literature concerning the statement in the Midrash, “On Rosh
HaShana, Sarah, Rachel and Hanna, were remembered” (Bereshit Raba 73:1). If one
were to study carefully and thoroughly the piyutim of Rabbi Elazar
HaKalir for Rosh HaSahana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Pesah, one would find many
applicable halakot and the entire pertinent Midrash, including many midrashim that are unknown to us from any
other source.

It is quite possible
that during the time of Roman and Byzantine rule in the land of Israel, the
ruling authorities prohibited shiurim and afternoon lectures by Torah scholars
and sent officers to the synagogues on Yom Tov afternoon to prevent the people
from studying. Consequently, the rabbis introduced the study of Torah into the
prayer service via piyutim, a subterfuge that eluded the authorities.
The piyutim were deliberately written in a fashion that would make them
difficult to understand, lest the officers recognize their true function and
forbid their recitation. As previously noted, we do not know with certainty
when Rabbi Elazar HaKalir lived. According to Tosafot (Hagiga 13a, s.v.
veraglei hahayot), he was the tanna, Rabbi Elazar HaGadol, who lived in
the second century, but according to other Rishonim, he was either an
amora, or one of the early liturgical poets, from the sixth or seventh century.
But his piyutim could certainly have served the purpose of integrating
Torah study into the prayers in a way that would not have been obvious to the
non-Jewish authorities.

Description of the work:

What follows is a description of this new work
[sent around from the publishers of the book]

Rosh Hashana, the Day of
Judgment, has been embellished with numerous fascinating liturgical poems (piyyutim).
This book is devoted to the compositions that were written for Rosh Hashana by
the illustrious poet R. El‘azar berabbi Qillir, who was active in the Land of
Israel at the beginning of the seventh century. The piyyutim for Rosh
Hashana are many and varied, and they adorn all of the special prayers for the
festival. A number of these piyyutim are known and recited to this day
in Ashkenazi congregations, while others are published here for the first time.
Even those piyyutim that are known from the festival prayer books (mahzorim)
are presented here in a new light. The present edition is primarily based not
on European mahzorim, but on earlier fragments from the Cairo Genizah;
on the basis of such early sources the editors have succeeded in adding new,
original material to the known compositions—there is not one famous composition
to which heretofore unpublished material has not been added, in some cases
throwing new light on the entire work. Even in such cases, therefore, we are
not merely offering old wine in new wineskins, but presenting a new blend that
confers on the poetic compositions novel aspects, not previously brought to
light.

This edition has been
prepared on the basis of close to 400 manuscripts, and all of the variant
readings have been given in the margins. An extensive commentary aids the
reader in understanding the difficult idiom of the payyetan, identifying
the many scriptural and midrashic sources that are woven into the piyyutim,
and following the development of their themes. A general introduction treats
various questions connected to the poems, from their attribution to the author
and the reconstruction of the component parts of each composition, to the
literary shaping of the material. In his piyyutim, R. El‘azar berabbi
Qillir treats Rosh Hashana in all of its aspects: the Day of Judgment, the
blowing of the shofar; the malkhiyot, zikhronot, and shofarot
verses; the merit of the Fathers; and more. A number of compositions are
specially intended for when Rosh Hashana falls on the Sabbath. Qillir’s unique
method in the shaping of each of these themes is also clarified in the
introduction. The complex web of interrelations between the piyyutim and
their literary sources is elucidated as well; thus it has become clear, for
example, that one of the piyyutim edited here for the first time throws
new light on the famous poem, U-netane toqef qedushat ha-yom.

“O King, Remember [the
ram] caught [by its] horn!” These few words from one of the piyyutim
published in the book reveal the genius of the great payyetan. Here, R.
El‘azar berabbi Qillir has succeeded in encapsulating in four words the three
great themes that lie at the heart of the benedictions that are unique to Rosh
Hashana—kingship, remembrance and the ram’s horn (shofar)—all in the
form of a prayer that beseeches God to remember for our sakes, on the Day of
Judgment, the Binding of Isaac, symbolized by the ram whose horns are caught in
the thicket. And if in four words the payyetan has managed to
encapsulate such far-flung meanings, one can only imagine the riches contained
in this enormous collection of R. El‘azarʼs writings for the Day of Judgment,
which we now have before us.

About the authors:

Prof. Shulamit Elizur has been teaching since 1980 in the section for Medieval poetry and piyyut
in the Department of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
She has published more than ten books and scores of articles, predominantly in
the field of Genizah piyyut, but also devoted to Spanish Hebrew poetry
and the development of various liturgical rites. A series of her books is
devoted to the Late Eastern period of piyyut, and comprises an attempt
to characterize the linguistic and literary developments attested during this
phase on the basis of the production of critical editions of a number of its
outstanding representatives. The present work is part of another series of her
books devoted to the great Classical poets, among them R. El‘azar berabbi
Qillir and R. Pinhas ha-Kohen.

Dr. Michael Rand specializes in Hebrew philology
and piyyut. Since 2013, he has been Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic at
the University of Cambridge. Dr. Rand acquired expertise with Genizah
manuscripts over the course of a number of years of work in the section for piyyut
and Medieval poetry of the Historical Hebrew Dictionary Project of the Academy
of the Hebrew Language. He has devoted an extensive study to the grammar of the
piyyutim of R. El‘azar berabbi Qillir; together with Jonathan Vardi, he
has recently completed a soon-to-appear reconstruction of a copy of the Diwan
of R. Shmuel ha-Nagid, the leaves of which are now scattered across various
Genizah collections. He has also written many articles, among which are a
number in which he has edited parts of the Qillirian corpus. In the present
work, Dr. Rand is responsible for the paleographical aspects of the research:
reading the manuscript sources, grouping them together (where relevant) and
reconstructing thereby the larger units (quires, books) to which they belong,
producing the apparatus of variant readings, and describing the manuscripts.

Purchasing
information:

For
a Table of Contents or more information about purchasing this work, feel free
to contact me at Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com. Copies of this work will be arriving
at Biegeleisen shortly.